Immaculate recovers to stop Newtown

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published
7:00 pm EST, Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Playing Newtown in the Hawks' Nest on Senior Night isn't easy. And Immaculate had already suffered a close loss to the hosts earlier this season.
Combine those circumstances with a poor start and it makes you wonder how the undersized Mustangs managed to rally for a 67-63 victory and clinch a berth in the South-West Conference tournament.
"We started off a little bit tight," said Immaculate coach Bob Nelson, whose team missed 12 of its first 13 shots and trailed 12-5 after the first quarter. "My kids knew it was a big game."
To qualify for the playoffs, Immaculate (11-7, 6-6 SWC) needed to win one of its last two games. It also could've backed in if Bethel lost to Notre Dame Wednesday, which the Wildcats did, 72-47.
Newtown (8-12, 7-6 SWC) was in a similar situation. A victory would've given it the No. 6 seed, according to coach John Quinn. The Nighthawks will probably still be sixth or seventh, Quinn said, depending on the outcome of today's Immaculate-Masuk game.
"I think we're still in relatively good stead," he said. "It was somewhat a game for position, but it was a game to get some momentum and traction for Saturday," Quinn said, referring to the SWC tournament quarterfinals.
Immaculate trailed 28-17 late in the second quarter and faced a 28-23 halftime deficit. It came back behind the shooting of guard Jon Nelson, who scored 14 of his 19 points after halftime.
Nelson missed a potential game-winning shot in the closing seconds of regulation. But he began the overtime by nailing his fourth 3-pointer of the game and the Mustangs never trailed thereafter.
Down 64-61 with less than 30 seconds remaining in overtime, Newtown got the short end of a controversial call.
The Nighthawks thought they had possession after getting a timeout from one official following Brennan Coakley's offensive rebound. But the other official said he called a foul on Coakley before the timeout was granted.
Quinn was incredulous, storming out on the court and stomping his foot several times as he confronted the officials.
"The play was right in front of me," Quinn explained calmly from the locker room afterward. "I heard the timeout call (by one of his players) and so did the other official. And then out of nowhere on the other side of the court a foul call was made.
"There was no way on God's earth he could've heard when the kid called a timeout. It was a change of possession and that was huge."
Immaculate's Brandon McEwan (15 points, 8 rebounds) sealed it with two free throws.
"It was too good a game for it to end that way," Quinn said. "It's very frustrating when the kids don't have a chance to win the game. And that's not sour grapes. My kids played real hard."
So did the Mustangs - in the second half. Earlier, they were a bit lackluster at the defensive end. For example, they allowed Newtown to get the ball downcourt for an uncontested layup with one-tenth of a second left in the first quarter immediately after a made foul shot at the other end.
"We talked about that at halftime, (having) some pride and all those good things" Nelson said. "Obviously, our kids responded. They have that mental toughness to get through basically a bad night shooting."
Immaculate shot 38 percent from the field.
"If we shoot like that, we're not going to win a lot of games, but we're lucky Newtown missed a lot of layups, too," Nelson said.
"We continued to miss easy shots out of our offense and that bug hit us a little today," agreed Quinn, whose Nighthawks shot 42 percent.
Senior guard Marcus Tracy, the state's soccer player of the year, kept Newtown close by scoring a season-high 22 points on a series of lightning quick drives and added four crowd-pleasing blocks.
Midway through the fourth period, Tracy scored on a backdoor layup, converted an offensive rebound and threw a bullet pass to Kyle Lyddy for an easy basket that put Newtown ahead 54-53 with 2:50 left.
Immaculate's Bobby Plumb (14 points) scored inside to tie the game at 58 with 1:14 to play.
With a chance to pull ahead, the Nighthawks turned it over. Immaculate held the ball for the final shot, which Jon Nelson missed to force overtime.
Point guard Kendall White contributed 14 points and nine assists for the Mustangs.